Fans of the old B movies might just want to check this movie out to see how Larry Bishop is doing. You might have thought he crawled into the same hole in the universe that Ross Hagen and Tom Laughlin disappeared into, but now he's back and on a rampage. He wrote, directed and stars in this movie along with Michael Madsen and Eric Balfour (cameos by Dennis Hopper and David Carradine). At one point the whole movie sort of becomes a self-conscious joke, when he hands this huge stack of his writings to a woman who just gave him peyote (we hear the strains of Funkadelic's classic "Maggot Brain" on the soundtrack to accompany his weird visions) in the midst of an odd conversation revolving around the word "fire." This is basically the point where you're laughing at the movie and the only difference is whether you believe it was intentionally crazy and ridiculous or that the director/writer actually thought he was making a profound film. I'm going for the former, considering how much exploitation content is stuffed into this film in the form of nudity and sadistic violence. I think it's pretty obvious that Bishop and everyone else knew that they were making a very excessive film. Some critics seem to believe the film's lack of focus is a weakness -- I think their personal need for focus is their own weakness.
Not that this is really a great movie even within the boundaries of what it probably set out to do, but I felt like it hit more than it missed. Bishop makes a fun gritty anti-hero, Hopper's cameo is a blast. You have to be able to immerse yourself in this world, where supermodel type women are flinging themselves at the ugliest bunch of road hogs you ever saw. Actually considering how much drugs these bikers probably carry with them it might not be all that unrealistic, although the girls wouldn't be quite so good looking. At any rate it's a mistake to really look at this movie and expect realism in any way. It's not the post-modern biker flick that producer Tarantino's fans were maybe hoping for; it's a lot closer to the genuine article. That's bound to please some people and turn others off.
Very cool soundtrack in addition to being the only movie I can think of that uses "Maggot Brain" (RIP Eddie Hazel). The whole feel and style of the movie is sort of in the "new western" mode of biker films like Corman's "Wild Angels" or Guercio's "Electra-Glide in Blue", with desert landscape homages to John Ford and everything. The audience I saw this with was drinking beer and laughing at the movie -- some of the people talking about it outside seemed to think it was a bad movie, but at the same time I think most everyone enjoyed it. So again I think there's just some confusion about what the film-maker's intentions are, and in my opinion entertainment is his primary concern. As such it was reasonably entertaining although a couple good action scenes would have helped it instead of all the bad guys just getting ambushed rather easily.
Not that this is really a great movie even within the boundaries of what it probably set out to do, but I felt like it hit more than it missed. Bishop makes a fun gritty anti-hero, Hopper's cameo is a blast. You have to be able to immerse yourself in this world, where supermodel type women are flinging themselves at the ugliest bunch of road hogs you ever saw. Actually considering how much drugs these bikers probably carry with them it might not be all that unrealistic, although the girls wouldn't be quite so good looking. At any rate it's a mistake to really look at this movie and expect realism in any way. It's not the post-modern biker flick that producer Tarantino's fans were maybe hoping for; it's a lot closer to the genuine article. That's bound to please some people and turn others off.
Very cool soundtrack in addition to being the only movie I can think of that uses "Maggot Brain" (RIP Eddie Hazel). The whole feel and style of the movie is sort of in the "new western" mode of biker films like Corman's "Wild Angels" or Guercio's "Electra-Glide in Blue", with desert landscape homages to John Ford and everything. The audience I saw this with was drinking beer and laughing at the movie -- some of the people talking about it outside seemed to think it was a bad movie, but at the same time I think most everyone enjoyed it. So again I think there's just some confusion about what the film-maker's intentions are, and in my opinion entertainment is his primary concern. As such it was reasonably entertaining although a couple good action scenes would have helped it instead of all the bad guys just getting ambushed rather easily.